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Threw the old plans in a blender (Wall of text)
6 years ago
General
Threw the old plans in a blender (Wall of text)
Alright, I've been way, way too quiet on here for the last few months. I know this is going to be long as hell, but with the amount of stuff I want to say, there's no real graceful way to do this. Going to just get this status report wall of text started and hope for the best.
First of all, huge, huge, HUGE thank you to everyone who has been going absolutely nuts over the past months making renders and animations with the Nika model. It's been really hard to write this part because I keep catching myself going on these long, sappy tangents writing paragraph after paragraph about my feelings about the project. I'm really not good at expressing sincere gratitude without completely overwhelming people...so just.....let's keep it at that for now. For the sake of writing a journal and not a novel. Just know that the amount of love that you've been showing the model has not gone un-noticed, and has been an honestly inspiring thing to be a part of for me.
I've been thinking really hard about where I want to go with these "skins" since the Nika paint wound down. The project was an honor to be a part of, but it was also an important test of what I've been doing up until now. Something that helped me expose a lot of flaws to myself in terms of the hardware, software, workflows, and resources I was using. It's no secret that I used to do 3d as a "job" for a period of my life, so I do have some skills and experience I brought to the table when I started up here. But I'm definitely struggling with the reality that some of my methods are outdated, time consuming, and sometimes just.....broken.
I also have a PC that's been threatening to die on me for the past three years. I've kept it alive on a combination of hopes, dreams, spare parts that friends give me, duct tape, and the occasional minor blood sacrifice. Nothing too violent. Just need to get a little drop on your heatsink and chant an incantation every few months and you're good to go. Satan ain't gonna hail himself.
Ultimately, the biggest question on my mind has been just how far I want to take these projects. Do I want to make simple repaints of existing meshes forever? Do I want to tinker around making scenebuilds in SFM? Or am I really here to pick up where I left off and resume my development as a 3d artist? Do I want to keep this gallery isolated from the pressures of having it be a "job" in any capacity? Or am I open to the possibility that, down the line, I may actually be interested in taking freelance commissions again?
That last question is the one I have the hardest time answering. Again, for the sake of not writing a novel, I probably shouldn't go too far into it, but my reasons for avoiding commissions have to do with that fact that working in the feild was stressful and alienating for me. Making lewds and cute pinups for myself has always been a combination of trying to counteract the alienation and engaging in a guilty pleasure for it's own sake. So while the idea of becoming a "freelancer" again is tempting, I can't shake the feeling that I'd be sacrificing something if I made that jump hastily. It's why I call myself a "hobbyist" on DA and not a "professional".....I just feel like I have more autonomy as a hobbyist, if that makes any sense. If I ever decide to cross that threshold and take commissions again, updating that artist tag will likely be the signal.
But the question of "do I want to tinker in SFM or do I want to grow as an artist" is one I have a answer for. I'm not satisfied just making skins and digging around for scenebuild props anymore. I want to be a true 3d generalist and start building my own assets again. Stuff built from scratch so I have the option of sharing with other artists or releasing the base files to the public. And I also want to overcome the fact that character modeling and rigging has been my biggest weakness since I started out in the field. I haven't built a rigged character since I was in school, and that was well over a decade ago. That shit needs to stop.
So here's where I'm at today:
After the Nika project, I took some time to relax and make the space shark poster. Then I started working on reinforcing my current PC while building a second one for production work. Now I have a dedicated production workstation again along with my main PC. I can finally handle complicated geometry and high quality renderers again without my PC threatening to explode on me, and offload long renders when I need to. No more drawing pentagrams on my stock intel heatsink to keep my core temps under 80c. We aftermarket custom cooling now, baby. Bigass fuckin' fans everywhere for that sweet, sweet 65c under 100% CPU/GPU load action.
Got that done late June, ended up binge gaming with the new hardware through July. Then I spent August and September learning new software. Drilled beginner tutorials in Blender 2.8 until I could perform the fundamentals I learned in 3dsmax/maya years ago. Spent a few weeks testing out 3dCoat, and ended up picking up a license for that. Also spent some time experimenting with Blender plugins and learning more about working with character rigs. I kept meaning to get back to making skins at some point, but every time I started, I'd end up going down another software rabbit hole and trying to learn something I didn't know how to do. So eventually I just stopped fighting it and committed to the learning phase.
A few weeks ago, I started feeling like I had a strong enough grasp of Blender to start planning out real projects. I picked a testing scene I had built around Nika and a Star Wars Battlefront HDR map that had very promising lighting, and committed to refining it into a finished, polished scene. Pushed myself to replace as many parts as I could manage with custom geometry, textures, and assets that look unique and "designed" to fit together while also testing the limits of my new hardware.
The result was the "Cloud City Opulence" render I posted recently. A little apartment space I built around Nika's character for this and future renders. It incorporates a mix of style cues lifted from Star Wars (Bespin) and Deus Ex (Tai Yong Medical), and feels like a good representation of what I'm capable of making when I'm really feeling inspired. And a big part of that sense of inspiration came from seeing the reception you guys gave our Nika model collab <3
Moving forward:
Things are going to be slow going for the near future while I work on mastering all of these new tools. I'll continue to make renders with Nika and this Bespin scene in Blender as I study character rigging and modeling. In time, I hope to have more to share on that front than just renders, but I don't want to make promises or set expectations until I've spent more time training in the laboratory. I do have some long term goals in mind, but better to keep things simple for now.
Otherwise, the next project is to start figuring out how my new toolkit fits into the reskin process. I was considering working on Kamaterasu to get the ball rolling, but I found that what I want to do there is going to require experience in 3dCoat that I don't have yet. So instead, I'm going to switch gears back to Qhala and snake gals for a little while. I've been meaning to re-paint her onto Petruz' cobra model for months, so that'll be a good opportunity to experiment with upgrades. I'd also like to try branching out into accepting requests using the same base model while it's "on the workbench". There were definitely some suggestions and requests made for other snake characters that I'd like to investigate. I'll try to get an update on all of this in the next few days so I can properly get the ball rolling on this one.
On that note, let's cap off the journal here. I'll work on making these shorter in the future now that we're a bit more caught up. For now I've gotta go write project notes and wrangle some snakes for the next update. More to come when I have the gameplan locked in.
Alright, I've been way, way too quiet on here for the last few months. I know this is going to be long as hell, but with the amount of stuff I want to say, there's no real graceful way to do this. Going to just get this status report wall of text started and hope for the best.
First of all, huge, huge, HUGE thank you to everyone who has been going absolutely nuts over the past months making renders and animations with the Nika model. It's been really hard to write this part because I keep catching myself going on these long, sappy tangents writing paragraph after paragraph about my feelings about the project. I'm really not good at expressing sincere gratitude without completely overwhelming people...so just.....let's keep it at that for now. For the sake of writing a journal and not a novel. Just know that the amount of love that you've been showing the model has not gone un-noticed, and has been an honestly inspiring thing to be a part of for me.
I've been thinking really hard about where I want to go with these "skins" since the Nika paint wound down. The project was an honor to be a part of, but it was also an important test of what I've been doing up until now. Something that helped me expose a lot of flaws to myself in terms of the hardware, software, workflows, and resources I was using. It's no secret that I used to do 3d as a "job" for a period of my life, so I do have some skills and experience I brought to the table when I started up here. But I'm definitely struggling with the reality that some of my methods are outdated, time consuming, and sometimes just.....broken.
I also have a PC that's been threatening to die on me for the past three years. I've kept it alive on a combination of hopes, dreams, spare parts that friends give me, duct tape, and the occasional minor blood sacrifice. Nothing too violent. Just need to get a little drop on your heatsink and chant an incantation every few months and you're good to go. Satan ain't gonna hail himself.
Ultimately, the biggest question on my mind has been just how far I want to take these projects. Do I want to make simple repaints of existing meshes forever? Do I want to tinker around making scenebuilds in SFM? Or am I really here to pick up where I left off and resume my development as a 3d artist? Do I want to keep this gallery isolated from the pressures of having it be a "job" in any capacity? Or am I open to the possibility that, down the line, I may actually be interested in taking freelance commissions again?
That last question is the one I have the hardest time answering. Again, for the sake of not writing a novel, I probably shouldn't go too far into it, but my reasons for avoiding commissions have to do with that fact that working in the feild was stressful and alienating for me. Making lewds and cute pinups for myself has always been a combination of trying to counteract the alienation and engaging in a guilty pleasure for it's own sake. So while the idea of becoming a "freelancer" again is tempting, I can't shake the feeling that I'd be sacrificing something if I made that jump hastily. It's why I call myself a "hobbyist" on DA and not a "professional".....I just feel like I have more autonomy as a hobbyist, if that makes any sense. If I ever decide to cross that threshold and take commissions again, updating that artist tag will likely be the signal.
But the question of "do I want to tinker in SFM or do I want to grow as an artist" is one I have a answer for. I'm not satisfied just making skins and digging around for scenebuild props anymore. I want to be a true 3d generalist and start building my own assets again. Stuff built from scratch so I have the option of sharing with other artists or releasing the base files to the public. And I also want to overcome the fact that character modeling and rigging has been my biggest weakness since I started out in the field. I haven't built a rigged character since I was in school, and that was well over a decade ago. That shit needs to stop.
So here's where I'm at today:
After the Nika project, I took some time to relax and make the space shark poster. Then I started working on reinforcing my current PC while building a second one for production work. Now I have a dedicated production workstation again along with my main PC. I can finally handle complicated geometry and high quality renderers again without my PC threatening to explode on me, and offload long renders when I need to. No more drawing pentagrams on my stock intel heatsink to keep my core temps under 80c. We aftermarket custom cooling now, baby. Bigass fuckin' fans everywhere for that sweet, sweet 65c under 100% CPU/GPU load action.
Got that done late June, ended up binge gaming with the new hardware through July. Then I spent August and September learning new software. Drilled beginner tutorials in Blender 2.8 until I could perform the fundamentals I learned in 3dsmax/maya years ago. Spent a few weeks testing out 3dCoat, and ended up picking up a license for that. Also spent some time experimenting with Blender plugins and learning more about working with character rigs. I kept meaning to get back to making skins at some point, but every time I started, I'd end up going down another software rabbit hole and trying to learn something I didn't know how to do. So eventually I just stopped fighting it and committed to the learning phase.
A few weeks ago, I started feeling like I had a strong enough grasp of Blender to start planning out real projects. I picked a testing scene I had built around Nika and a Star Wars Battlefront HDR map that had very promising lighting, and committed to refining it into a finished, polished scene. Pushed myself to replace as many parts as I could manage with custom geometry, textures, and assets that look unique and "designed" to fit together while also testing the limits of my new hardware.
The result was the "Cloud City Opulence" render I posted recently. A little apartment space I built around Nika's character for this and future renders. It incorporates a mix of style cues lifted from Star Wars (Bespin) and Deus Ex (Tai Yong Medical), and feels like a good representation of what I'm capable of making when I'm really feeling inspired. And a big part of that sense of inspiration came from seeing the reception you guys gave our Nika model collab <3
Moving forward:
Things are going to be slow going for the near future while I work on mastering all of these new tools. I'll continue to make renders with Nika and this Bespin scene in Blender as I study character rigging and modeling. In time, I hope to have more to share on that front than just renders, but I don't want to make promises or set expectations until I've spent more time training in the laboratory. I do have some long term goals in mind, but better to keep things simple for now.
Otherwise, the next project is to start figuring out how my new toolkit fits into the reskin process. I was considering working on Kamaterasu to get the ball rolling, but I found that what I want to do there is going to require experience in 3dCoat that I don't have yet. So instead, I'm going to switch gears back to Qhala and snake gals for a little while. I've been meaning to re-paint her onto Petruz' cobra model for months, so that'll be a good opportunity to experiment with upgrades. I'd also like to try branching out into accepting requests using the same base model while it's "on the workbench". There were definitely some suggestions and requests made for other snake characters that I'd like to investigate. I'll try to get an update on all of this in the next few days so I can properly get the ball rolling on this one.
On that note, let's cap off the journal here. I'll work on making these shorter in the future now that we're a bit more caught up. For now I've gotta go write project notes and wrangle some snakes for the next update. More to come when I have the gameplan locked in.
